Bach with your rice cooker? Fauré on your washing machine? Meet the appliances that duet

28 August 2020, 17:31 | Updated: 30 August 2020, 19:36

Rylie Harrod-Corral kitchen duet
Rylie Harrod-Corral kitchen duet. Picture: Rylie Harrod-Corral

By Helena Asprou

That perky triad you get when you switch your washing machine on? Turns out it’s 100 per cent Fauré.

Some musicians have a knack for spotting a melody, even if it comes from an unexpected place. And here are just a few wonderful examples.

Cellist and Instagrammer Rylie Harrod-Corral recently discovered that the descending sequence of notes on her kitchen cooker perfectly mirrors those in a Bach cello suite. Take a listen...

Kind of reminds us of the time a choral requiem jumped out of your latest spin cycle....

The serene opening to ‘In Paradisum’ from Fauré’s Requiem is one of the most beautiful moments in music, and it features a very distinctive triad on the organ.

It seems that quite a few people have found that exact triad is featured in the start-up beeps to popular household whiteware.

Written in the late 1880s, the Requiem in D minor is one of Gabriel Fauré’s best known works.

It premiered at a funeral mass in Paris, and the French composer described the work as “dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.”

It includes seven heavenly movements, which are scored for soprano and baritone soloists, a mixed choir and an orchestra – and of course, that unmistakeable organ.

"IN PARADISUM" / Messe de REQUIEM de FAURÉ («Une berceuse de la mort...»)

But it’s the final movement, ‘In Paradisum’, that seems to be a big hit with people’s modern cleaning appliances.

And that’s not all – it seems as though your laundry devices are a fan of the late Austrian composer Franz Schubert, too:

And if you’re looking to pick up a new musical instrument, how about a dishwasher theremin?